CALAMITY HOWLER/A.V. Krebs

Pogo Was Right: The Enemy Is Us!

Throughout the world there is hardly a nation where family farmers
have not come to recognize their common enemy -- corporate
agribusiness! EXCEPT in the United States of America!

Examining a county-by-county red n' blue political map of the US
after the recent mid-term elections one cannot help but recall, as
this column did recently, American economist Thorstein Veblen's
musing in his 1923 essay, "The Independent Farmer" that "farmers are
surrounded by bankers, railroad magnates and food processors who
profit from their effective collusive control of the market while the
foolish farmer does little more than identify with the very people
who are most adept at exploiting him."

Red being Republican and blue being Democrat, the northeast US
was a mixed bag of colors while the south was also mixed, but more
red than blue. But once one reached the Mississippi River, from that
point on west it was almost solid red, except for Texas's
southwestern border and a strip of land west of the Cascade mountains
stretching from the Canadian border to San Francisco, California.

This is not the first time in recent elections we have seen such
a pattern, and yet, with each election we see family farm agriculture
in these United States continue to suffer and struggle for mere
survival. As has been said, the best approach, when one finds oneself
deep in a hole, is to stop further digging.

There was a time when one saw the rural/conservative/Republican
vote in predominantly rural states, somewhat offset by the state's
more urban liberal vote, which had the affect of occasionally nudging
that state into the Democrat column. But judging by the recent
aforementioned political map even that rule-of-thumb no longer
holds.

Meanwhile, family farm agriculture continues to wallow in chronic
crisis while the full disastrous dimensions of both Minnesota Sen.
Paul Wellstone's tragic death and the results of the Republican sweep
of Congress, the White House and Supreme Court are just beginning, at
this writing, to be seen in our nation's capital.

As the National Family Farm Coalition executive director Kathy
Ozer points out: "We face major new challenges in our work to change
farm and food policy in the US for several reasons.

"First, the mid-term elections returned Republican control to the
Senate. Second, the death of Paul Wellstone profoundly impacts the
Coalition and our work on farm and food policy.

"Despite a worsening economy, the election debate emphasized a
post-Sept. 11, pro-Bush war agenda. Voter turnout reached only 39%.
The outcome of this election is far greater than who makes decisions
on the details of farm or trade policy -- it can determine who sits
on the Supreme Court or gets appointed as judges across the
country."

Ozer notes that the minority House leadership of Rep. Nancy
Pelosi (D-Cal.) will surely determine the tone of the House for the
next two years, leading up to the 2004 presidential race.

Almost completely ignored in that struggle for minority House
leadership was the candidacy of a real progressive who entered the
race at the last minute. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), a long-time
champion of family agriculture and farmers' rights, got little
attention from the media, but what she had to say was far more
interesting than most of the pseudo-populist tripe coming out of
Washington, D.C. recently.

"To win," Kaptur charged, "our party must adopt a reform
paradigm. We will never raise more money than the Republicans --
never! We must elevate the non-money wing of the Democratic Party and
create populist symbols to convey our message.

"We should hold up key Republican fundraisers, such as Jack Welch
and Kenneth Lay, as the 'poster boys' for the failed GOP economic
strategy. We should hold the Republicans' feet to the fire on rising
bank fees, skyrocketing insurance rates, tax breaks skewed to the
richest Americans, and a failed deregulation strategy.

"But we Democrats," she adds, "have to articulate an alternative
for America's families and workers. We should work with Democratic
governors and state legislatures to push prescription drug
initiatives. We should propose a federal national health insurance
plan for small businesses. We should propose a national service
program to help students pay off their college loans."

In addition to a counter-cyclical economic stimulus plan that
includes visionary projects such as high-speed rail to get our
country out of recession, Kaptur urges championing an energy
independence plan that would liberate our foreign policy and help
solve our balance of payment problem.

"We should," she concludes, "stand up not only for the steel
industry, but also the textile workers in the Southeast, the auto
parts industry in the Midwest, and the small businesses such as
tool-and-die shop owners and the family farmer all around the
country. They're all in trouble, and nobody's standing up for them
because they're not giant multinational corporations pumping money
into the political system."

In further outlining some of the grim realities faced now by the
family farm movement in our nation's capital, NFFC's Ozer notes that
on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
replaces Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.) as chair of the Senate
Agriculture Appropriations Subcommit-tee. He also replaces Sen. Tom
Harkin as chair of the Agriculture Committee. With Sen. Trent Lott
(R-Miss.) as the Senate Majority Leader, that gives major influence
to the South -- heavy rice and cotton supporters -- further
raising farm, trade and disaster provision questions.

Ozer adds: "For agriculture and food issues, the most significant
shift is Sen. Cochran replacing Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) as chairman
of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Sen. Richard Luger (R-Ind.) will
step down from the Agriculture Committee chairmanship to lead the
Foreign Relations Committee. The Ag Committee's Democratic numbers
will fall in correlation with the overall Senate, meaning Sen. Mark
Dayton (D-Minn.) will likely lose his seat on the Ag Committee."

A small taste of what is sure to come can also be seen in
President-Select George W. Bush's recent appointment of Daniel
Pearson, who most recently served as assistant vice president for
public affairs for Cargill, the world's largest grain trader, to fill
a seat at the International Trade Commission. The appointment came
after several senators, including Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who
takes over as chairman of the Finance Committee in January,
complained about a lack of ITC representation for "farmers" who
account for more than $50 billion in annual US exports.

The ITC, a supposedly non-partisan investigative branch of the US
Trade Representative (USTR) and somewhat similar to the role that the
Congressional Research Service has with the US Congress, accepts
submissions from the public and does its own research on the possible
effects of trade.

Clearly the times are a-changin' for family farmers to put aside
inbred political traditions, petty differences such as regionalism
and commodityism, phony issues such as the estate tax question, such
myths that the USDA actually represents the interests of family
farmers, and such beliefs that the pseudo-populist politicians they
routinely vote for year after year actually care for their
future.

November's mid-term election results at the same time continued
to show the repercussions of the Democratic Party's near abandonment
of its black and Latino constituencies. Family farmers and rural
communities now need to start preparing to show, in turn, the
Republican Party in 2004, the dire consequences of its
ever-increasing slavishly patronizing of those very same "communities
of economic interests" that are driving them out of farming and off
the land by the thousands.

The hour is late, maybe too late, but family farm agriculture
needs not only individual leadership in this dark night of its soul,
but more importantly it needs to adopt as its battle cry in the
immediate years ahead the mantra of its last true political friend
Paul Wellstone -- "organize! Organize! ORGANIZE! ... and ... We
Will Win! ... We Will Win!"